The last two and half years of my academic career have been spent in an oasis. The location of Hamilton lends itself to a sanctuary-like existence. In winter time this is even more apparent, as the snow envelopes and insulates us from the world. We read about labor strikes, politics in Washington, natural disasters, and celebrity court cases, but looking out from under the shade of our proverbial palm trees (we can only dream) all these things seem distant and far, far away. Hamilton never looks at itself in the now but always toward the future, toward what will be and what may come. For us students it is a weigh station for some indefinably complex future that is more exciting, dangerous, and (we feel) ultimately better that what's here now.
I realize now that everywhere we go, we try to bring a piece of New York along with us. Its salt, its character, its resolve. We envy and admire and at the same time resent it because it works, and we want our own cities and towns and campuses to work like New York does.
Everywhere you look in America there is a push to live together harmoniously, to respect and embrace differences, a push for greater and better things, progress in action and in thought. In New York City you live and are defined by this every single day. The America we all want is reflected in its five boroughs. Diversity on an unimaginable and beautifully immense scale. It is the vanguard of a future America that is seen both within and outside the nation and it leads by example.
